


once repeated

by peakgay



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/M, Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 22:38:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5309681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peakgay/pseuds/peakgay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You sure you aren’t looking for a divorce lawyer?”</p><p>Eliza has the overwhelming urge to turn, face Aaron Burr, and slap him across the face. Instead she clings to her skirts as he takes a seat at his desk, dark eyes watching her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	once repeated

**Author's Note:**

> or, the one where eliza isn't as relentlessly Loyal as we all hoped  
> girl's gotta have flaws  
> also i have to #sin

Alexander sleeps in his office.

Eliza stares at the bed they once shared, crawling to the head of it, folding her knees to her chest. There is an aching in her stomach, her chest - a churning sense of distance. She lies down slowly, takes one pillow and presses it to her face, breathing in through her nose. Whatever is left of that woman doesn’t linger any longer.

The tears sting in the corners of her eyes and she shifts, resting the pillow back and taking a moment to make the bed. She dresses quickly, not sparing herself a glance in the vanity mirror before she pauses outside of Alexander’s office.

“I’m going out for the night,” she says.

He looks at her.

He looks at her and she looks away.

Somehow, he’s not naive enough to ask her where she’s going. He just licks his lips, nods slowly.

Eliza, despite everything, wants to step into the room and run her fingers through his hair, tell him to bathe before he goes to sleep.

She bites her lip instead, thinks about that ache that still lingers where her heart is, begging her to leave.

Alexander nods and looks back at his desk. She takes that moment and turns around, the tightness unknotting in her for a brief moment as she opens and closes the front door.

The walk is short, and she only has a few minutes to ponder how she might have reacted if only he had told her privately, holding her hand, begging for her to love him still.

She thinks about the people in the square, whispering about the great Alexander Hamilton.

_His poor, loyal wife._

_What would happen to her if she hired a divorce lawyer?_

_She would never. I’ve met Eliza Hamilton. She loves that man like nothing else._

_But she’ll be heartbroken._

_She’s not a woman to hold a grudge._

She raps her knuckles against the door and waits.

Aaron Burr shows up after a pause. She knows she could turn around, go home, retreat.

She hadn’t wanted to believe, at first, when Alexander said he was being blackmailed, accused of embezzling.

Aaron Burr was one of those men who cornered him, he said.

She remembers biting back at him _I’m sick of your excuses. Get out of this house._

He had left, and come back home early in the morning, sometime near four if Eliza was counting the hours properly. Sleeping alone is difficult.

Burr tilts his chin up. “Mrs. Hamilton.”

“No,” she says. “Don’t call me that,” she whispers.

He smirks. “Ms. Schuyler?”

She glares at him. “Do you hold any accountability? Any at all?”

Burr takes a step back and Eliza steps into his house. “Accountability for your dearest Alexander’s infidelity?”

Eliza gives a sharp shake of her head and looks at him again, eyes narrowed. The hallway is dimly lit. Burr holds a lamp. It illuminates his jawline. She had always found him beautiful.

She remembers meeting him on the street with her sisters.

“His infidelity should have been a private matter,” she says after a moment. 

“And are you here just to chide your neighbor for wondering if your husband could do wrong?”

“Alexander…” She pauses, trailing off. “I’m not here to talk about Alexander.”

Aaron Burr stares at her for a moment before he leads Eliza into his office - or what she assumes is his office. A desk, scattered with papers - he sets the lantern there where it keeps the room barely lit. 

“You sure you aren’t looking for a divorce lawyer?”

Eliza has the overwhelming urge to turn, face Aaron Burr, and slap him across the face. Instead she clings to her skirts as he takes a seat at his desk, dark eyes watching her.

She swallows.

“Where is your wife?” she says, unclenching her hands and clasping them in front of her stomach. 

“Dead,” he says, a certain pleasantness in his tone that shakes Eliza. She looks away from him.

“Then,” she says after a moment, trying to steady her voice. “You can’t hate me for what I’m asking of you.”

“You have to ask before I hate you,” he says, but his voice is more gentle now, the hard lines resisting the way he speaks.

Eliza approaches him and Burr adjusts his chair to face her more head on. Eliza swallows again, this time against the vibrations making her fingers and thighs quiver. The chair is large, carefully crafted, easily big enough for two bodies. Eliza rests her hands on the back of the chair, straddling Burr’s hips. He doesn’t move under her, though his eyes trail from her collar, to her jaw, to her mouth and finally her eyes.

She looks at him, unblinking.

“You know, there are things that can’t be undone.”

“I don’t need to be lectured by you, Aaron Burr,” Eliza hisses. “Touch me.”

Still, he moves slowly, simply resting both of his hands on her waist. He squeezes his fingers and licks his lips, watching her with a frown. “If you leave now, not a single soul will ever know. Alexander won’t know. You can tell him you went for a walk. I’ll never betray your secret.”

Eliza laughs and takes one of Burr’s hands, sliding his fingers down over her hip and to her thigh. She lets him rest his hand there for a moment, fingers wrapped around her leg, barely squeezing as he watches her. Eliza breathes deeply from between her lips and out through her nose, closing her eyes as she drags his hand down further, underneath her skirt. Burr’s breath hitches, just loud enough for her to catch, and Eliza smiles as she positions his fingers at the apex of her thighs, then between.

He moves of his own accord, just barely, the tips of his fingers running lightly along the hem of her underwear. 

“Touch me,” she says again, moving her other hand from the back of Burr’s chair to his shoulder and tightening her grip.

If he hesitates, it’s for only a second, and one finger slips under the fabric, touches her where warmth and wetness gather.

Burr hums.

“What,” she whispers, pulling her hand from underneath her dress and holding him by his shoulders. She keeps her eyes shut. 

He answers by sliding a finger inside of her. She shudders and drops her hips an inch. Burr holds her more tightly with his other hand.

Eliza rolls forward, focuses on the sensation of Burr’s palm brushing against her clit. She drags her teeth along her bottom lip, clenches and unclenches her fists in the silky cloth of the jacket he wears over his shoulders.

She isn't sure how long they rock against each other before she opens her mouth, whispers, “Fuck me,” and finds that the words seem still and sorrowful at the parting of her lips. Burr is still inside her - just fingers, perhaps not enough, she wants to know - and he comes to a stop at her words.

“No,” he says, and she hates him for a moment, thinks of removing herself from his lap and going home to cry with shame, but she’s come this far, the moment is right there, it’s begging for her. Burr’s hand is too wet for her to leave now, unsatisfied as she is and likely will be, regardless. “Eliza…”

There it is again - that hesitation.

“Do something, Mr. Burr,” she says, and this time the words are cold and hard, and Burr shifts again, wrapping his free arm around her waist to keep her close, a second finger joining the first. She shivers as he fucks her with his fingers, a slow, rhythmic action.

She grinds down against him. She remembers Alexander, can’t hold back the notion of it, of him. He would look at her, kiss her mouth, part her lips, make use of everything he had. His physicality, his hands, his words. He breathed such beautiful words into her. Sometimes he used his tongue to spell out things he left unsaid. These fingers are not Alexander’s. Alexander was never so insistent. He liked to bring her off slowly.

He had fucked her once, like this, sitting at his desk.

She imitates that night, finally opening her eyes to stare into Burr’s warmly lit face. She hates the way his eyes are just as warm, a certain carefulness there she wants to pull out and destroy. She takes his fingers. He slides them out to rub her clit.

“Faster,” she says. There’s no use in letting this wait any longer. “More, and then…” She hesitates, and Aaron Burr keeps her body steady as her legs start to quiver. He touches her intently, the pressure of his fingers on her clit already starting to bring her consciousness to the edge. She drags in a sharp breath. “More,” she says again, “and then - inside me -” The words release in between gasps but even as her eyes flutter shut again, she feels Burr nod.

He does as she asks.

She rarely ever had to ask Alexander.

She never felt the need to.

His mouth, soft against her throat.

Fingers holding her wrists down.

He had smiled. That was a long time ago.

She gasps, whines, shudders and clings to Aaron Burr as he twists two fingers deep inside her.

“Eliza,” he says, a whisper near the skin of her throat, and she comes, choking on another gasp, collapsing against him, panting against his shoulder and then his neck.

She realizes, her face flushing with the adrenaline and the shame, that he hadn’t even removed her underwear.

Aaron Burr slips his fingers out from under her skirts and continues to look at her.

She turns away, scared to move.

“Eliza,” he says again. He strokes her face - thankfully with the hand that hadn’t just been inside her - and Eliza shakes her head.

She stumbles off of Aaron Burr’s lap. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, voice hoarse. “You - here - it was a mistake.”

“Eliza,” he says, voice still smooth. Her father used to put honey on bread, smooth, sweet, like this man’s voice. She chokes, buries her face in her hands, leans back against his desk. Aaron Burr, Aaron Burr, _He was a friend, of sorts._ Eliza remembers smiling at her husband. _I didn’t see him at the wedding._ Alexander hummed, looking away from her. _He arrived afterwards and spoke to me. He was a friend, not that I really know much about friendship._

“Your wife is dead - my husband is paranoid to the point of breaking his quills - ” She stops, midsentence, shakes her head and starts to gather her hair, raking her fingers through it. She has to look presentable. Maybe he’ll sleep in their bed with her tonight. She has all the guilt he has, it’s come full circle - she has nothing over him, no morality, no superiority.

Aaron Burr stands. She isn’t sure when exactly, but he stands and approaches her and cups her hands in his and kisses her knuckles.

She doesn’t pull away, doesn’t want to.

“Go home, Eliza. Sleep well. Forget you were here, if it’s easier.”

He releases her hands, walks out of the room.

Aaron Burr comes and goes as he pleases.

Alexander had said as much in his complaints about the man.

Eliza finds no mirror and leaves the Burr household in the dark. Somehow, walking home is even shorter this time. She thinks of the children, asleep. Thinks of Alexander, awake. He’s awake most of the time.

She opens the door softly.

She hasn’t been gone so long.

He’s in his office, kneading his temples.

“I took a walk,” she says, standing in the doorway.

The lamp lights his face, where there’s only exhaustion.

“Eliza,” he says, his voice breaking.

It hasn’t been long enough. “Good night,” she says. She lets her voice be careful. She pauses, licking her lips and watching as he watches her. Then she steps into the office, walks to Alexander and presses a kiss to his forehead. “Sleep,” she says. “Please, sleep.”

Alone, she walks down the hall to their bedroom. She shuts the door, undresses, crawls under the sheets naked and holds a pillow to her chest.

He isn’t there, warm, solid, her husband, when she wakes up.

She tries not to hinge herself on the disappointment.


End file.
